The Runes of Destiny

Book 0: Runes

by Christina Courtenay

Genres: Family Life; Viking Romance

Synopsis

From the author of Echoes of the Runes comes a thrilling new timeslip novel, filled with adventure and romance, perfect for fans of Barbara Erskine, Diana Gabaldon and Vikings.

Separated by time. Brought together by fate.

Indulging her fascination for the Viking language and getting her hands dirty with an archaeological dig is just what Linnea Berger needs to take her mind off her recent trauma. Uncovering an exquisite brooch, she blacks out reading the runic inscription, only to come to, surrounded by men in Viking costume, who seem to take re-enactment very seriously.

Lost and confused, Linnea finds herself in the power of Hrafn, a Viking warrior who claims her as his thrall and takes her on a treacherous journey across the seas to sell her for profit. As they set sail, she is forced to confront the unthinkable: she has somehow travelled back to the ninth century.

Linnea is determined to find a way back to her own time, but there's a connection forming with Hrafn that she can't shake. Underneath his hard exterior, he is brave, clever and caring - not to mention attractive. Can she resist the call of the runes and accept her destiny lies here with Hrafn?

Don't miss Christina's pacy, evocative and romantic dual-time novel, Echoes of the Runes, out now.

(P)2020 Headline Publishing Group Ltd

Release date: December 10, 2020

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 352

Sample

Chapter One



Kneeling in a muddy trench in the middle of an archaeological dig might be considered a dirty and boring job by some, but it was just what Linnea Berger needed right now. The rhythmic scraping of a trowel on soil was soothing, mind-numbing, creating an inner peace she had been craving for weeks. And who cared about a bit of mud?

‘Finding anything, Linnea?’

She looked up into the kindly face of Uncle Lars. He wasn’t her uncle really but the grandfather of her best friend Sara, as well as her dad’s boss. Lars and his family had been a huge part of her life for as long as Linnea could remember, hence the honorary title.

‘Nothing much.’ Although to be honest, she hadn’t really been paying attention. Oops! She glanced quickly at the heap of soil behind her, hoping she hadn’t missed anything vital. It was a good thing her dad wasn’t here or he’d have told her off for sure.

‘Well, what’s that then?’ Lars pointed at a cream-coloured patch that was just emerging from the soil in front of her. He hunkered down and smiled, the grooves around his eyes deepening. ‘Keep trowelling. I think this could be good.’

‘Oh, right.’ Linnea refrained from making a face. She’d learned by now that the finds an archaeologist considered ‘good’ usually proved to be something extremely mundane and boring, like a glass bead or a rusted piece of metal that resembled nothing more than a pitted lump. But then she didn’t have their expertise in the minutiae of Viking life, which was what they were exposing in this field. Lars’s enthusiasm was infectious, though, and she always enjoyed watching him at work.

Lars and Haakon, Linnea’s father, oversaw archaeological digs every summer. Since the age of six, Linnea had been dragged along, even though she’d never been all that keen. It was just an inevitable part of her summer holidays, and as Lars usually brought Sara, who was the same age as Linnea, at least they’d had fun when the hard work stopped each day. The two girls had hit it off right from the start and had been best friends ever since. Although Linnea normally lived in the UK these days, while Sara had stayed in Sweden, their bond remained strong.

The archaeology bug had never bitten Linnea, or at least not in the practical sense. Instead she’d become fascinated by runes and the Viking language – Old Norse – to the extent that she was now a PhD student in that subject at the University of York. It required a certain amount of knowledge about the culture, of course, and a love of all things Viking, which she’d acquired through her parents. But she’d always preferred to read about the period rather than dig up the evidence first-hand.

That all changed with the accident . . .

She continued to scrape and Lars joined in, pulling his own trowel out of a back pocket. What began to protrude from the dark earth was ivory in colour and slightly domed. Linnea swallowed hard and hesitated. It couldn’t be . . . could it? Tense now, she levered off a large piece of soil and was suddenly face to face with a gaping eye socket, its dark, mournful stare directed straight at her. She jumped and emitted a small shriek.

Lars didn’t seem to notice. ‘Well, hello! What have we here? I do believe it’s the first grave of the site. Excellent! Just what I was hoping for.’

Linnea wasn’t listening. Confronted with the reality of death and the remains of an actual body, she’d tuned out. The only word that registered was ‘grave’, which sent her mind into a spin. It was far too close to home. Her surroundings disappeared and instead she was in the back of a car again, travelling at way over the speed limit, and then everything imploded. The screech of tyres braking too late, the vicious crunch of metal being compressed, the tinkling of shattering glass and the screams of people who knew they were on an unstoppable path to destruction, taking their last breath . . .

How did you forget? Was it even possible to make your brain delete something like that, once experienced? Linnea closed her eyes and tried to stem the rising tide of panic that assailed her every time she relived those moments, but it didn’t work. Breathe, Linnea, breathe. In slowly, hold it, then push the air out through half-closed lips. The therapist’s instructions were clear, but she couldn’t do it. It was impossible. A cold sweat broke out between her shoulder blades. Her hands started shaking, her heart fluttered against her ribs in a frantic dance and somehow her lungs weren’t big enough for the air to get through . . .

‘Hey, Linnea, are you OK?’

She blinked and returned to reality – a field in the wilds of the Swedish countryside. Sunshine on her face, a soft breeze caressing her hair and cheeks, and Uncle Lars peering at her with concern written all over his face. At last she managed to suck in the much-needed breath, but her heart was still going ballistic. Was she OK? No, not really. The fact that she’d escaped almost unscathed while Sara’s parents hadn’t made her feel worse, not better. Survivor’s guilt, even though she’d only been a passenger, the accident not her fault. She tried to focus on Lars, putting up a hand to push against her ribcage as if she could calm her heart from the outside. At least Sara is going to be OK, focus on that. Breathe!

‘Um, yes. Yes, I’m fine, thanks. Just . . . you know, remembering. He . . . it . . .’ She nodded in the direction of the trench, but couldn’t bring herself to look a second time at that baleful eye.

‘Oh sweetheart, I’m so sorry! I should have realised. Come on, let’s get you away from here. You’ve gone as white as . . .’ Lars glanced at the skull in the ground, then quickly looked away. ‘I mean, we don’t want you fainting now, do we?’

‘I’m OK,’ she repeated, but didn’t resist when he pulled her out of the trench and tucked her arm into the crook of his elbow, steering her towards the food tent.

Linnea was grateful. She didn’t think her legs would have carried her away from the horrible sight of the skeleton – she shuddered at the mere thought of the word – without Lars supporting her. His kindness made her want to cry, but she’d run out of tears ages ago. The well was dry.

‘Let’s get you some coffee and a chocolate bar. You’ve had a shock. Entirely my fault. I get too carried away. Poor girl . . .’ He patted her arm and found her a seat at a camping table while he went in search of coffee.

If only she could be stronger, like him. It was his son and daughter-in-law who had died in that car, after all, and his granddaughter seriously injured. But he seemed to be coping with the grief by burying himself in his work. The only outward sign was the profusion of new wrinkles on his brow, and the occasional sombre, contemplative expression.

For Linnea, however, it wasn’t that easy. It had become impossible for her to concentrate on translating obscure old texts or memorising the syntax and grammar of Old Norse and related languages. Her brain seemed unable to function the way she wanted it to, preferring to dwell on the terrible waste of two lives cut short far too early, and giving her no peace. And her anxiety attacks had grown worse – every time she stepped out into the York traffic and heard car brakes screeching or horns blaring, her breathing became laboured and her heart rate went into overdrive.

It was unbearable and she’d just had to get away for a while. Joining this dig was a godsend. Or at least it had been until a moment ago . . .

Lars returned with a mug, a bowl of sugar lumps and a chocolate bar. ‘Here you go. Put lots of sugar in that coffee; best thing for shock, or so I’ve been told.’ He made a face. ‘I really am sorry, my dear. I’m a thoughtless old man. When I’m working, I don’t let real life intrude. I mean, of course I’m just as sad as you are, but I simply don’t allow myself to think about it during the day. And digging up skeletons is part of my job, always has been.’

‘Don’t worry about it. Not your fault.’ And it wasn’t. He didn’t mean to be insensitive. Linnea just had to toughen up, stop associating everything with what had happened. She’d been doing better this week, forgetting about it for several hours at a time, but that creepy, empty eye socket had brought it all back in technicolour detail.

She still had no idea how she’d escaped the accident with only minor injuries, but she knew one thing – if Sara’s dad hadn’t been driving too fast as usual, he and his wife might have been alive now. Linnea was still angry with him for being such a speed freak. For never listening. Hadn’t Sara and her mum told him over and over again it would end in tears? Although they’d never imagined it would be something this awful . . .

‘Earth to Linnea?’

‘Huh? Oh, sorry, I was miles away.’ Linnea blinked away the images, willing them to stay buried in her subconscious. She had to let it go. Had to. Especially now that Sara was finally getting better and might be out of hospital soon. She would need Linnea’s support if she was to recover fully. ‘What were you saying?’

‘I said how about I let you loose with a metal detector instead? Then you don’t have to do more than indicate to the others where to dig and you won’t get any nasty surprises.’

‘Sure.’ Linnea had to admit that sounded better.

‘Come on then, finish that coffee and I’ll show you what to do.’

She swallowed the last of the hot drink and shoved the remaining chocolate in her mouth as she followed Lars out of the tent and over to a stash of implements. He picked up a metal detector and showed her how to use it. ‘If you get a strong signal, put down one of these markers for now.’ He handed her a bag of plastic pegs.

‘OK. Where do you want me to start? Or am I part of a team?’

‘No, it’s just you today. Try over in the next field, behind that hedge. The geophys guys haven’t been in there yet, so it’s virgin territory.’

‘Right.’ She hesitated, then reached up to give him a quick hug. ‘Thanks for having me here, Uncle Lars, you’re the best.’

His cheeks turned a bit ruddy. ‘It was the least I could do in the circumstances. It was my son who nearly . . . Anyway, glad I could help, if only in a small way.’

But Linnea knew he would have helped out whatever the reason. He was that kind of man. When he’d heard that her dad’s summer project had been delayed, he hadn’t hesitated in offering her a place on his own dig with immediate effect, allowing her to get away from everything when she needed it the most. And it was working. Just not when faced with . . . skulls. She suppressed a shudder.

As she set off towards the field, she knew she was very lucky to have Lars in her life.

Starting on the other side of the hedge, Linnea began to methodically scan the ground with the detector. Every now and then it gave off a beep, signalling something of interest. Without thinking too much about it, she marked the spots and carried on. As she walked, she tried to steer her mind in a happier direction – the beautiful birdsong coming from all around her, the soft caress of the wind on her face, the wonderful scents of burgeoning leaves and flowers. It was peaceful, she couldn’t deny that, and her therapist was right – it was time to start enjoying life again.

‘She means that you need a man,’ had been Sara’s comment when Linnea told her about this advice. Happily settled in a relationship herself, Sara seemed to think that having a boyfriend was the answer to everything, but Linnea wasn’t so sure.

‘No, I think she was trying to tell me that moping won’t bring your mum and dad back. That me being miserable isn’t helping anyone, least of all myself. Besides, there aren’t exactly a whole bunch of guys queuing up to date me.’

That wasn’t quite true. She’d had offers – fellow PhD students and guys hitting on her in pubs or clubs – but she wasn’t interested. There was only one man she wanted: her tutor, Daniel. He was ten years older than her, and she’d had a crush on him since the first time they’d met. With their shared interest in Old Norse, history and academia, he’d seemed perfect for her. It didn’t hurt that he was tall, dark and handsome – such a cliché – although Sara didn’t agree.

‘He’s too intense. The archetypal nerd,’ was her verdict the one and only time she’d met him.

‘Is not! I’d rather have him than some rugby-playing type, all muscles and no brain.’ Linnea hotly defended her crush. And she wasn’t the only one who had noticed Daniel – he always seemed to have a gaggle of starry-eyed female students around him. ‘But it’s all academic anyway, as he never seems to notice me except as someone who can take on some of his research workload and do his filing.’ Not that she minded helping him. It was a great excuse to talk to him.

Her mobile pinged and she stopped halfway along the field to fish it out of her pocket. Speak of the devil . . .

Hi Linnea, haven’t you had enough of the archaeology malarkey? We’re all missing you at the department, especially me J D x

It was the weirdest thing, but when she’d told Daniel she was taking time off to go to Sweden, it was as if he’d suddenly realised that he was about to lose her and couldn’t bear it. Ever since she arrived, he’d been texting her, and the tone was growing warmer. Today’s message actually made her blush. There was a smiley face and that x – a kiss? Linnea stared at the screen, her heart hammering in her chest for a different reason now.

How should she reply?

‘Oh, sod it, what does it matter?’ she muttered, typing quickly. She was probably imagining the increase in interest anyway.

Not quite yet, although I’m missing you all too. But the peace of the countryside is soothing and I’m starting to enjoy it here. I’ll be back soon enough – I’m sure you can find someone else to do your filing for you L x

She added a winking face to show that she was joking, although there was an element of truth in there, a niggle of doubt. Why was he suddenly so keen? Did he just need her as an unpaid assistant, or did he actually miss her? But if he only wanted a skivvy, there was no need for the kiss at the end of the message, was there? And he had plenty of other students – both male and female – who could help him out with stuff.

The reply came almost immediately.

No one as good as you! Don’t stay there too long – I mean it! D xx

Linnea couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so she just carried on with the metal detecting, while daydreaming of Daniel’s darkly handsome face. It wasn’t just his looks she admired, though. He was brilliant in his field and a respected professor, one of the youngest at the university. They’d had some spirited discussions about Norse dialects, and just having someone to talk to about obscure matters like that was amazing. They were on the same wavelength, two peas in a pod. Had he finally realised that?

By the time she had reached the third corner of the field, she was feeling much more optimistic, and had started weighing up her options for the future when the detector suddenly went berserk, jolting her back to the present. The beeping seemed to be going almost off the scale. She stared at the machine and passed it over the same spot several times.

‘Whoa! What have you found?’

She knew she ought to just place a plastic marker here and move on, but her curiosity was well and truly piqued now. Something about the machine’s insistence stirred up feelings of excitement, and without thinking, she bent down to use the end of the marker to scrape at the soil, removing it layer by layer. In between, she passed the detector over it, and each time it almost screeched at her. ‘OK, OK, take it easy,’ she muttered. At a depth of perhaps a foot, she spotted something with a dull shine. ‘Aha! Got you.’

Gone were all thoughts of the correct excavating procedure that her dad had drilled into her at length over the years. She forgot about context, layers and recording the surroundings of every find so it could be properly dated. The glimmering object called to her, and she shovelled the soil away as fast as she could. It was only when she held a magnificent silver brooch in her hands that she registered what she’d done.

‘Oh, shit!’ Lars was going to kill her.

She took a deep breath. Well, the damage was done now so she might as well have a look at her find first before taking it to Lars. Brushing the soil off with the edge of her T-shirt, she followed the design with one finger, taking in the exquisite swirls and decorations. Although the brooch was tarnished, she could see animal heads picked out in gold filigree with a narrow gap between their gaping jaws. When she turned it over, she found a runic inscription scratched into the surface. ‘Oh, you’re definitely Viking then. Wow!’ This was amazing; Lars would be so pleased. Well, apart from the whole context thing, but hopefully he’d forgive her for that . . .

Once she’d cleaned the soil off, the writing was as clear as the day it had been done and, being an expert on various runic alphabets, Linnea had no trouble reading it.

‘Með blóð skaltu ferðast,’ she whispered. ‘“With sacrifice you shall travel”?’ Or . . . no, it said blóð not blót, so ‘blood’ rather than ‘sacrifice’. What did that mean? She frowned as she followed the long pin with one finger down to the very tip and absent-mindedly tested its sharpness. ‘Ouch!’ Damn it, she should have been more careful. Blood welled out of her tender skin and she wrapped part of her T-shirt around it. Good thing it was black, or the stains would never come out.

‘Með blóð skaltu ferðast,’ she said again, puzzling over the meaning of the phrase. ‘Travel where?’ But in the next instant, a wave of dizziness hit her with the force of a small tsunami and made her reel. She cried out, holding on to the brooch as if it could anchor her in an upright position, but the whole world began to tilt on its axis and she felt as if she was spinning out of control. Nausea slammed into her gut and she gulped for breath, leaning forward to steady herself against the newly dug soil.

‘What the . . . ? Aaarrgghhh!’

A loud racket reverberated inside her head and ears, as if a huge crowd of people were all hissing and shouting at her in unison, and the spinning intensified. She moaned out loud, terrified of what was happening but unable to make sense of it. It couldn’t be the sight of blood – she’d never been scared of that – and the May sunshine wasn’t strong enough to cause heatstroke, surely? But she felt so ill . . .

Just when she thought she was going to be violently sick, the dizziness stopped and everything went black.

Chapter Two



It wasn’t every day you found yourself sitting on the ground surrounded by a horde of Vikings. Well, perhaps not quite a horde, but certainly more than half a dozen.

Linnea had absolutely no idea how she’d got here, but staring up at the group of men looking down at her, she felt very small and vulnerable. She assumed they must be re-enactors; they were certainly taking their roles seriously, their expressions uniformly fierce and menacing. When one of them took a step towards her, she scuttled backwards instinctively and held up a hand to ward him off.

‘Whoa, take it easy there! I don’t want to be part of your little war games. Go play with someone else.’

She had to admit they looked authentic. Wearing well-made period costumes that were realistically dirty in places, they were bristling with gleaming weapons – knives, long-handled axes, bow and arrows, and in one case even a sword. And was that a . . . a dead deer hanging from a branch carried by two of them? Yuck. They must be pretending to be a hunting party. The one who’d come closer – a blond guy with eyes like a frozen blue lagoon – started shouting something at her in what sounded like a weird dialect of Icelandic. She wasn’t listening, though, as she suddenly remembered what she’d been doing before she fainted.

‘Yesssss!’

She was still holding the most amazing penannular brooch of pure silver, decorated with intricate animalistic motifs. Heavy and big, its circumference was at least three inches, and it had a very long, sharp pin for use when fastening a cloak with it. So sharp, in fact, that she remembered pricking her finger on it when she’d tested the tip. There was a droplet of blood coagulating on her skin to confirm it.

‘Awesome!’ she murmured. It was the kind of find most archaeologists could only dream of, and yet she was just a helper who’d been playing around with one of the metal detectors. How lucky was she?

A laugh bubbled up in her throat, but the blond guy was still shouting, and as Linnea peered up at him, her laughter faded away. She was fluent in both Old Norse and Icelandic, having studied them as part of her degree, and she couldn’t help but register the word for ‘thief’ once he’d said it about three times. She was surprised he knew that much. Most re-enactors only learned things like greetings or common commands for attack for the purposes of their fake battles. And no one was quite sure how these were supposed to be pronounced. It was all educated guesswork. That probably explained the accent. Either way, she still felt dizzy and vaguely nauseous, and definitely not in the mood to be harangued. She hadn’t stolen anything. Couldn’t he see that she was right next to the dig site?

‘Oh, be quiet,’ she muttered. ‘You’re just jealous.’ When he didn’t stop talking, she added, ‘Þegi þú!’ – ‘shut up’ in Old Norse – in a louder voice. She’d bet anything he didn’t think she knew how to speak that language.

It worked – he stopped mid sentence, so he obviously understood those words as well. Unusual.

In fact, there was a collective intake of breath and the entire group went silent, staring first at Linnea, then at shouty guy. What, they’d all understood? How could that be? She blinked at them in surprise, but the man’s pale blue eyes narrowed, and with a hiss of fury he snatched the brooch out of her hands and barked an order in the same language. ‘Bring her!’

‘Hey, give that back! It’s my find!’ Linnea lurched to her feet, even though an attack of the spin monsters threatened to overwhelm her. But before she’d taken even one step, her arms were gripped by strong hands and she was almost lifted off the ground.

‘What the . . . ? Let go of me, you bastards!’ Kicking and screaming, she attempted to free herself, but it was useless. These were muscle-bound pretend warriors, probably on a daily dose of steroids, and their grip on her felt like iron clamps.

The guy on her right muttered, ‘Þegi þú?’ and chuckled. Linnea gathered that he thought it was hilarious that she’d said that to their leader. But she didn’t see anything funny in her situation. Where were they taking her anyway?

She looked around to see which tent they might be heading for. Were they going to report her to the dig’s director? They’d catch cold at that since Uncle Lars would never believe the claim that she’d been stealing. He’d vouch for her. Besides, he was the one who’d told her to have a go with the metal detector in the first place.

But she soon noticed that she had an entirely different problem to contend with – the tents were all gone. Every last one of them.

What the heck?

The dig was due to continue all through the summer, so what had happened? The team of archaeologists had also disappeared, and there wasn’t a single trench in sight. Linnea began to panic. How long had she blacked out for? Had she somehow moved away from the site during that time? No wonder Blondie and his mates thought she was absconding with treasure trove.

‘Hold on. Wait! I can explain . . .’ she protested, and pulled at the vice she was being held in. ‘Come on! You can’t seriously believe I’d run away with a socking great Viking brooch? What would I do with it? Look, if you take me back to the dig, I’ll sort this out with the director. He’s my uncle, well sort of, and—’

But the leader turned abruptly and marched up to her, standing almost nose to nose. ‘Be quiet,’ he said in Norse, the words clipped and angry, ‘or you might not live to see the end of this day.’

Linnea’s mouth fell open and she had to make a conscious effort to close it again. She ought to have been scared, but she was too angry. ‘Are you threatening me?’ The nerve of the guy. They weren’t living in the Middle Ages.

But as he went back to the front of the group without answering, she caught sight of their destination in the distance and nearly choked on a gasp. They were heading towards a clutch of buildings, the largest of which was a massive Viking-style longhouse.

And Linnea knew for a fact there were no such buildings anywhere near the dig site. So where the hell was she?

There were some days when you wished you hadn’t got out of bed and others when you couldn’t get up fast enough. Having slept on a disgusting flea-infested straw mattress in a dark wooden hut, Linnea was definitely in the second category today, even though neither option was very appealing. And it wasn’t as if she was able to go anywhere.

She was locked in.

She didn’t know if there really were bed bugs, but her imagination supplied them and she was itching all over. The mattress had been hard and uncomfortable, rustling every time she moved, and she wouldn’t be at all surprised if it contained all sorts of vermin. It didn’t help that she’d only had a scratchy woollen blanket for cover, but beggars couldn’t be choosers and the nights were still cold this time of year. She kept it wrapped around her now but couldn’t suppress a shiver, partly from revulsion, but also because she was freezing.

And scared. Very scared.

Ever since her arrival in the pretend Viking settlement the previous day, she’d been stuck in here. At first there had been some light seeping in through holes up near the roof, but when night fell, no one came to give her illumination of any kind and she’d been left in complete darkness. She’d tried to get out while she could still see, even going so far as to climb up to the rafters using old shelves as footholds, but those holes – air vents perhaps? – were too small to squeeze through and the door remained locked and solid. All she had to show for her efforts were a couple of splinters and a grazed knee.

So far she had only been given one meal and some water. The food was some sort of porridge – at least she thought that’s what it was supposed to be – but it was more like eating wallpaper paste with bits in, and there was no sweetener or even a berry or two to add taste. These people obviously believed in re-creating an authentic experience, but Linnea would have infinitely preferred a piece of bread.

She suppressed a sob of despair and fury and went to test the door for the umpteenth time. Still locked. She kicked at the offending mattress to give vent to her feelings. Despite the gloomy interior of the hut, she saw a dust cloud rise up and envelop her. It made her cough, which in turn made her even more cross.

‘They can’t do this! Bastards!’ It had to be illegal, keeping a person prisoner.

Had it really been necessary to lock her up like this? She’d assumed it was only until the police arrived and she was reported for the alleged theft, but the hours had passed and nothing happened. If only they’d give her a chance to explain that she hadn’t been stealing the brooch at all, but no one came to talk to her.

Instead they seemed to have kidnapped her. Why? And who were these people? Some crazy sect living a ‘green’ life out in the countryside? She’d heard of the Amish in America following an older lifestyle without modern trappings, and speaking an ancient dialect of German, but never anything like that in Sweden. She couldn’t make it out.

‘Bunch of loonies,’ she muttered, yawning and pacing back and forth out of sheer frustration. She hadn’t actually slept much at all as she’d been on edge, not knowing what they were going to do with her. And just as she’d been about to nod off, some dogs had started howling in the distance. It had sounded just like a pack of wolves, eerie and sending shivers down her spine, but as wolves had been extinct for at least a hundred years it couldn’t have been. Huskies, maybe? Who knew?

The worst thing was not knowing how she came to be here. Not here as in the pretend Viking settlement – they had clearly walked – but the place where she’d woken up yesterday. How had she ended up so far away from Uncle Lars’s dig? She’d only been in the next field; she remembered scrabbling in the soil to free the silver brooch from its hiding place. Of course, she shouldn’t have touched it until one of the archaeologists had recorded its exact location, but she’d been carried away by the excitement. And then she’d pricked her finger on the pin.

The next thing she recalled was a sensation of tumbling head over heels into nothingness, and then waking up in a different place, surrounded by Vikings. She shook her head. No, pretend Vikings. But what did they want with her, and why hadn’t they just taken the brooch while she was unconscious? It made no sense.

Too anxious to sit still, she continued to pace the har